HORIZONTAL DRILLING IN APPALACHIA: THE CURRENT STATE OF STATUTES, REGULATIONS, AND CASES1

• Jurisdiction: United States

Horizontal Oil & Gas Development
(Nov 2012)
CHAPTER 6D
HORIZONTAL DRILLING IN APPALACHIA: THE CURRENT STATE OF STATUTES, REGULATIONS, AND CASES¹
Russell L. Schetroma
Steptoe & Johnson PLLC
Meadville, PA

RUSSELL L. SCHETROMA is a member of Steptoe & Johnson in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He focuses his practice in the areas of energy and oil and gas law. Mr. Schetroma has represented oil and gas exploration and production companies in all aspects of their Pennsylvania operations, including lease and other document design, negotiations, permitting, administrative proceedings, joint operating agreements, farmouts, acquisitions, dispositions, due diligence reviews, title examination and reporting, financing and litigation in state and federal courts for more than 35 years. From 1972-2010, he practiced with the law firm of Culbertson, Weiss, Schetroma and Schug, P.C. He is a Trustee, Energy and Mineral Law Foundation; Chair, Land Title Standards Committee, Crawford County Bar Association; and Board Member, Municipal Law Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a listing in The Best Lawyers in America®; Recipient, John L. McClaugherty Award for distinguished service to the legal profession, the natural resources industry, and the Energy and Mineral Law Foundation (2007); Super Lawyers®; Service Award, Meadville-Western Crawford County Chamber of Commerce (2000); Recipient, Outstanding Service Award, Greater Meadville Board of Realtors (1996-97); Recipient, President's Award, Eastern Mineral Law Foundation (1993); and Recipient, Pennsylvania Bar Association Award for extraordinary contribution to pro bono service (1989-1990). Mr. Schetroma graduated cum laude from Dickinson School of Law, and cum laude from Elon College. He has published and spoken on numerous occasions for a number of different organizations.

Appalachia has a long history of oil and gas operations beginning with Drake's well in 1859. The Appalachian states, however have very limited oil and gas jurisprudence because the ongoing value and level of oil and gas operations through from the early twentieth century until the shale explosion in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century was highly conventional and did not generate substantial litigation or regulatory change.

As the shales have emerged as major industry and economic drivers, all that has changed. The regulatory agencies in all Appalachian...